What would happen if an Elantrian burned or flared aluminium? Would they become Reod or a normal person? Or something else?
Like if they got Allomantic powers?
Yeah, like a lerasium [bead] or something.
Okay, yeah, I'm gonna say RAFO, I knew this one was coming.
I want to ask how were the Realms created and does their creation have anything to do with Adonalsium and the Shattering?
So, good question. The Realms predate the Shattering of Adonalsium and are part of the fundamental physics of the cosmere. So they would have been created at the equivalent of the cosmere Big Bang when time was created and things like that.
When I read Wax and Wayne, I have in my head, "That's how Batman would look like if Brandon wrote it." When I read The Rithmatist, I think "That's how Harry Potter would look like if you wrote it." My question is: Do you have this in mind when you write such stories and is it intentional?
It wasn't intentional for Wax and Wayne, but my pitch for Rithmatist to my publisher was, "The Muggle at Hogwarts." The Rithmatist is the person with no magic, who's a superfan of the magic, who gets to go to the magic school. So for The Rithmatist, it was actually part of my original pitch and concept, so yeah.
I have a question about emotional Allomancy and ways it can affect things that aren't from Scadrial. Specifically, I had a conversation about what it would do to Lifeless.
Emotional Allomancy would have a more compelling effect on Lifeless than on a regular person.
Like breaking Lifeless with Allomancy?
Oh... to break Lifeless. This... I'll RAFO that for now, just because the actual details there I'm gonna RAFO. So, you're really asking, "Can emotional Allomancy bring back the person behind the Lifeless," and that I'll have to RAFO.
I meant like breaking the Command.
Oh, breaking the command of a Lifeless. Ohhhh... I'll still RAFO that. *laughter and applause from audience* That's not nearly as difficult a question, but yeah... I would say if you're doing that in a roleplaying game, I would call that a viable use of the magic as currently understood. So you could make that happen and have my authority to do it.
When I was first naming all the characters, I did this--it's a very classic mistake new writers make. And sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. And this is to name the characters things that relate to their role in the plot. So I was naming all these characters and I was basing their Aons on their personality. Which if you think about, doesn't make any sense. Parents could not name their characters after the trait the characters was going to eventually exhibit?
But it's like a mystical thing! Maybe determined or fates...
Yeah, you could say that. But at the end of the day, if you could look at the back and be like, "This one means Traitor. That character probably is the traitor!" It worked for Star Wars, right? He named Darth Vader, "Dark Father," in German, and none of us got it. When I went back to the books and I looked him over again, when I was editing it, my editor said, "Do you really want to do this. Do you want to name the character this, because they can just look in the back and find out what the character's name means." And I realized no parent would name their kid, "Traitor." I thought it was cute but it was actually just dumb. So I went back and changed it all.
Who was it originally and what was his name?
I'm trying to remember who I named, "Traitor." I named one of the nobles, "Traitor." I'm trying to remember who it was.
Probably the traitor one.
Yeah probably the traitor one. It was more than that. I named all of the nobility these names based on what their role in the plot was.
*Inaudible* Ahan maybe?
Yeah. That's who it was, yeah.
We know that on Sel, it's incredibly difficult to worldhop there because of a certain dangerous factor in the Cognitive Realm.
Yep.
Is it possible to worldhop by means that are not through the Cognitive Realm?
You wouldn't call it worldhopping, but if you could FTL there, you could get there without having to go through the problems. I call worldhopping mostly using non-physical means, but we haven't gotten there in the Cosmere really yet, except for, like, Sixth of the Dusk and things. So, the fan terminology may include worldhopping as jumping in your ship and FTLing over. But... nothing would prevent that. If you had a ship that could FTL using one of the magic systems in the Physical Realm, you would probably be okay, getting to Sel.
Why did the Elantrians came to Roshar in the first place? Because the question came up after I reread Elantris, so...
Are you talking about... specifically... the old ones? Yeah, why were they on Roshar? So, those specific individuals - the Ire, as we call them - are a group of Elantrians that are not representing all Elantrians. They were there. The one you've met is there for a specific reason. The Ire are involved there. They're mostly... where you've seen them, is on Scadrial so far, but they're interested in Roshar. You are talking about the lighthouse keeper, I assume? So, the lighthouse keeper, wouldn't... would be counted, I guess, as one of the Ire and is there for a specific purpose, but it is not related to their general purpose, that they're trying to achieve.
How's that for being vague? I'm sorry.
So, yesterday on the metal panel, you talked about how creating aluminum revolutionized our society. So ever since yesterday, I wondered if you one day can see some kind of... like you know, the Empire from Star Wars? Like, a society like that, probably from Scadrial that is made entirely out of aluminum and things of that nature.
Yeah, I totally can. Absolutely, I can see that and it's going to be pretty cool, if I can get it all to work.
We were talking about Nightblood. How do you go about creating characters that are inanimate objects, but come to life? Because it seems a lot different. Also, gods... like, things that are otherworldly, because characters like real people, it's easy to write that. But considering gods and inanimate objects, that's beyond, sort of.
Well, fortunately, for us writers, nobody among our audience will be able to contradict us. Right? So, in some ways, writing something that nobody has ever experienced is a lot easier than writing something that a fair percentage of the population has experienced but you have not. And so, I just do my best. Being a writer is about learning to, "fake it." To pretend you're someone you're not, to pretend to have the experience that you don't, so that character sounds authentic. And faking something that no one can call you on is actually fairly easy.
In the world of Stormlight, we have the Weeping season, where there are no large storms [highstorms], we don't have any new Stormlight. How did the Knights Radiant deal in the past? Like, how did they handle this time?
Well, there's a couple of things, some are spoilery for the books. Large gemstones can keep the Stormlight, though. Some dealt without and just didn't have it. In some cases, they had the large gemstone reservoirs. It was a thing they planned for and there were a couple of other little hacks that are not obvious in the beginning of the series. So, you actually get a RAFO on that.
Have you had any negative feedback from other wheelchair users about Rysn's storyline?
I did go to a bunch of them to ask, so I've been trying. But if you have negative feedback to give me, I would love to hear it, because I had two beta readers in wheelchairs give me the best advice they could. But I obviously do not have that same disability, so there's things I'm going to get wrong.
How do you think you did? How did you do [on Wheel of Time]?
How did I do on Wheel of Time? I think I did as close to as good a job that I could have done. There's a few things I'd change if I could. I think I dropped the ball a little on Padan Fain, in retrospect, and my Mat, particularly in Gathering Storm, was... I got there on Mat, I feel, as best as I could do Mat, which is not as good as Robert Jordan could, by the time I got to A Memory of Light, but it sticks out a little bit. But he just had a big event in his life, no spoilers, just a big event. Just pretend he's off kilter because of the big event.
Those are my two biggest regrets on that. I think I got pretty close to as good as I could have done. I don't think I did the job that Robert Jordan could have done. By definition, his would be better.
If you were in the Reckoners books, what kind of superpowers would you have and what would be your weakness?
I'm canonized in the Reckoners books and the Reckoners board game as Quicksand. My weakness is early mornings. Wake me up too early and my powers go away.
Does Gavilar and Amaram know that Nale and Kalak are the Heralds and that all the other Heralds also...
That's a spoiler. Can you talk around it?
Yeah. So did they know that the people being met, who were they and also if they knew, why'd they still continue on the missions?
Let's just say that information is not being shared clearly and succinctly between different groups that are interacting in the prologues of the Stormlight books. How about that. But the cat obviously got out of that particular bag that you're asking about and the ramifications of it are in the first prologue. You'll find out. When this book comes out, your question will get answered pretty clearly so just know that you'll get your answer in about a year.
My question is about, especially in the Stormlight series, I noticed that you use a lot of different languages and that when people speak in languages that is not their mother tongue, they use different phrases and they make mistakes that really remind me of the mistakes that we Israeli do when we speak English. Do you speak multiple languages and can you tell us a bit about languages in the Cosmere?
So, yeah. I do speak... poorly... I studied French all through high school and my French is really bad. And I was a missionary in Korea and learned Korean and my Korean is slightly less bad. *speaks Korean* I said, "I don't speak Korean very well, I speak about as much as a rat's tail," which is a phrase in Korean. Learning another language was really helpful for writing fantasy books. Going and living in another culture? Really helpful for writing fantasy books.
Languages in the Cosmere are going to vary based on my needs for a given book. I spend my worldbuilding time on what is relevant to the characters and story. So, for instance, the linguistics in Elantris were really important to the story. The linguistics in Mistborn were not as important to the story and so I spent more time on the languages for Sel than I did for Scadrial. I did spent a decent amount of time on the languages for Roshar because all the different cultures and things like that having conflicts with one another is a big part of the story.
Worldbuild in service of the story, is my suggestion to you guys. Spend your times on things that are going to be relevant to the characters.
Is Hoid named after the Sephira of Hod? Like with an Ashkenazi pronunciation? The Kabbalistic thing.
Oh, the Kabbalistic thing. Not consciously, though the Double Eye is based a little bit on the Kabbalah tree of life, consciously. That's the illustration on the front cover of the first Stormlight book. And I have read a bunch of Kabbalah, so it's totally possible that it ended up in there on accident.
How was it that the Lord Ruler was able to speak into the minds of the Terris and ask them if they want to become kandra while he was wielding Preservation?
Lord Ruler... able to speak with the minds of the kandra...
At least TenSoon said in the text that he spoke directly into their minds.
Send that to me, I want to go to Peter for that one. I think we have an answer for that one, but I want to make sure I'm getting it right.
Why was it that Vasher was able to throw Nightblood while fully drawn but Szeth couldn't even drop him
So it may have been part to why Nightblood has less an effect on Vasher in general than the other people, but there's also a little of a bit a measure of experience... but there's some other stuff going on with Vasher.
I often, when I'm building languages, there are a lot of different ways that I go. I am not a philologist like Tolkien was. I'm not a linguist. Peter is, my editorial assistant, but I am not. I have had a little bit of schooling in linguistics, but not enough to be creating complete con-langs out of nowhere. So I'm usually using a few tricks to develop my language, one of which is to look for historical languages and seek inspiration from them.
And the pitch for myself on the whole thing, in Fjorden, was what if the Vikings had created a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and had instead of conquering the world as Viking, Nordic destroyers, they had become a religious group. They're really based off of the Geats, which is Beowulf's people, which are Nor--are British, they're British Vikings, basically. And so when I was developing them, I was using a bit of Nordic--old Nordic and things like that--and I'm using a bit of old English, and just trying to get that feel. In Beowulf, because in Beowulf they have some Danes and you have some people from the British isles, and there's this crossing over, and things like this, and it's this interesting sort of mix and hodge-podge of cultures and languages, from, 1000AD, and i really liked that feel, I really liked that linguistic flavor, so to speak, and so, I was really reaching towards lots of names out of Beowulf as inspiration.
If you could meet any author from history, and you could meet with him and ask him a question. Who would it be, and what would be the question?
I'm going to guess God doesn't count?
*laughs*
Moses!
Moses, I could go with Moses. *sighs* Would it be Moses? Would it be Abraham? It's gonna be one of the bible writers, right? It might just be Isaiah, or one of the ones like... It would probably be Daniel and I would be like, "Let's go over that dream. Right?" *laughter from audience*
"Let's go over that dream and you can tell me exactly what it actually means. You can trust me, I won't tell anyone." *audience laughs and claps*
So, *inaudible*
Secondary answer would be "Robert Jordan" and "How did I do?"
If you needed to pick a band to write your soundtrack, which band would it be?
Band to write my soundtrack? Probably, Two Steps From Hell.
Was Nightblood a metalmind or a Hemalurgic spike originally?
No. Great question!
In Warbreaker, the royal family's hair can change colors based on their emotions. Why is it only natural colors? Is there a reason for that?
It's only natural colors, they could go further than natural colors. Basically, their perception is what's influencing that. They can actually change more than just the color of their hair, but as in a lot of things in the cosmere, the way you view how your abilities work shapes the actual abilities.
Are you going to put a gay character in your book as a major character?
Yes! Someday I will, I want to... I'm easing my way into it because my specific culture and biases, I think would lead me to do it poorly, until I've... until I kind of ease my way in. There will be main characters who are LGBTQ in the future. I'm getting there, be patient with me.
About the end of Secret History... We see that Saze is being very shy with Kelsier. Seems like he is afraid of what he's gonna do. Can you tell us about it?
*carefully* Sazed believes in Kelsier more than Kelsier does.
Do axehounds have gemhearts?
Do axehounds have gemhearts? Yes, but they're very small.
Well, in Elantris, we saw two people get in the Shardpool, right? We saw Riino, who we later saw in Oathbringer, and we saw Saolin- the warrior. Will we see him again? Like, will we see a cameo?
It is possible that you will, but I will have to RAFO it. You'll have to wait to see.
When Jasnah picks up the bead for the palace, is that the same bead that Shallan picks up in Oathbringer?
Yeah.
Is that a coincidence or is there something else...?
So, whenever things like that happen you can assume there's little bits of Connection going on that's changing the probability a little bit. You're not meant to read much into it, but the probability is increased because of thing like that.
And you'll find, if you look really closely, there are connections between the characters that are really subtle that I'm doing, that anyone who's touching the Spiritual Realm or thing like that. For instance, in the second book, Syl turns into Shallan while Shallan is washed up on the beach while Syl is talking to Kaladin somewhere else. There's enough Connection going on that you see Syl change shapes, and Kal's like, "It looks like she's walking on a beach!"
It's just Syl... because through all of that, is turning into... You'll find things like that <happening> all through the books, really subtle, really small. There's just meant to be, one of the things in the Cosmere is Connection. Your Connection to people, Connection to things, places, influences probability a little bit.
Will there ever be an Allomancer trying to burn a Hemalurgically charged metal?
Yes.
Can Allomancers be anemic?
Yes.
Is there a Dawnshard in Aimia?
Yes. Well, there definitely has been a Dawnshard in Aimia in the past, that is why it has been protected so well, obviously. Maybe it is still there and maybe not, that is an open question for now.
My editor in America made me cut out half of the kolo's – what did you translate "kolo" as?
"Kolo." 'Cause you know, it's foreign language, so I just preserve it as it is.
Yeah. He made me cut half of those. He was so annoyed by my kolo's. You don't to understand, languages use these little verbal tics, that are very common – I don't know if Hebrew has one, but, like, they're very common, like - Korean has one - <Kuritzu?> - which people put at the end of a lot of sentences, and they just mean "Isn't that so?" or "Am I right?" or... it basically gives you a moment to think while you're talking, and a lot of languages have them. So, this is one of the examples of: fiction happened to be less realistic than real life, because in a lot of real-life texts you would have one of those every other sentence. And I use them like, you know, once a page, and my editor is like, "This is way too much."
Does a Shardblade work on Sel?
Yes.
Will we see the Sibling?
Yes, you will see him before the end of book 5
Is he the same as he was last we saw him?
The Sibling is in the same form as he was before.
Given the Sibling, and the Death Rattle about how "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns", was there a third Shard on Roshar with Honor and Cultivation prior to Odium's arrival?
RAFO.
Good question.
I didn't know the whole cosmere when I wrote Elantris. In fact, a lot of the things I put into Elantris, like the shardpool, I put in feeling like I would connect them later on, but I had no idea how they were going to connect. By Mistborn, I did have all the cosmere. I have an advantage in that, because I took so long to publish, I was able to do a lot of practice books, and it let me really settle in on what I wanted to do, and I was able to build the cosmere... For instance, Dragonsteel (which I wrote after Elantris) is Hoid's backstory and his origin story and things like that. (And also has Bridge Four in it. Back then, they were on a different planet.) I was able to really experiment in Aether of Night with what shardpools meant, and the gods and the Shards of Adonalsium. You can read that one, that one's on the internet just for free. I think the easiest way to do it is to go to my forums and ask them for a copy. I told them they could give it away. It's not very good. It's not terrible, but it does have a lot of shardpool stuff in it, so if you're interested in that.
So by the time I wrote Mistborn, I knew what I was doing with all of this. And I think kind of retrofit to make sure Elantris still fit it all. Hoid still had an appearance, the Shardpools worked the way I wanted to, the magic systems were based off the cosmere magic, the realmatics were all consistent, and things like that.
People ask me a lot, "Where did you get the cosmere?" It was a gradual evolution during the unpublished novels, and then was done by the time I wrote Mistborn.
Will we get the poly triangle we deserve?
I could see a world where Shallan and Adolin would go for it, but Kaladin is as prudish as I am, so I doubt you'd persuade him. :) For now, we'll have to leave that to the imaginations of the fanfic writers.
The cultivationspren at the bank in Celebrant was also a bundle of vines like Wyndle. I wonder if it has something to do with the bond or if she is different in the Cognitive Realm because Adolin thought of her as different (with him speaking to her often).
Mayalaran is described as being a woman while other cultivationspren are described as being vines. I was just wondering if that was an inconsistency on (Brandon's) part or if there was a reason behind it.
She's made up of vines (visually, this kind of looks like a person with the skin removed--showing muscles--but not quite.) I mention it some places in the text, but because her skin is a darker brown (with the vines a different color) it's a little harder to see on her, and the eyes tend to distract people and draw their attention first.
So she's kind of a female Groot rather than a vine covered woman?
No, more vine covered woman. Or woman made from very small vines tightly wound together like muscles. If you saw her on earth, you would think, "huh. Cool cosplay. Wonder if that latex is uncomfortable" not "holy cow, that is an alien."
There was a really neat recent post that showed how they use a rotated Copper symbol like we use the "cent" symbol ¢. Are there any other examples in your mind?
I'm glad someone noticed that we took copper and rotated it to mean "clip." Since Scadrial is the closest planet to being like Earth in the Cosmere so far, it's fun to do little things like that. I could see us doing something similar with one of the other symbols to use it to mean a boxing, maybe the symbol for Gold.
The Steel Alphabet is interesting in that each symbol represents a letter, a number, and a metal. When a Scadrian is reading a sentence with words, numbers, and metals, how do they know which of the three each symbol refers to?
It's all related to context, similar to how we usually know which "they're, their, or there" is being used, even if we sometimes don't know how to spell each.
I'm getting "Taln's scar" tattooed on my right shin to cover a scar. Any input on the size/shape of the galaxy? (more than just the star map in the front of arcanum)
That's pretty cool! Well, Taln's scar is going to look different from different vantage points in the Cosmere. From the vantage point used on the Arcanum star map, it looks like a curved string of red stars. Elsewhere it's straighter. From some vantages, it will be horizontal, and others it will be vertical. There will be the sides of some planets that won't see it at all, kind of like how the North star isn't visible from the southern hemisphere of earth.
Are just the stars red? Is there cosmic space dust around them that's also red? Like a Nebula, but also red?
I honestly don't know if the stars are red or if there is space dust around them making them appear to be red. This is a question better asked of Brandon. However, I don't think you can go wrong making the stars red themselves as they appear on the chart, especially since most of the Cosmere views them as red, too.
When did Nazh and Khriss meet?
RAFO
Does Nazh work for Khriss because she's hired him, or because they share common interests?
They share common interests, and Nazh is fiercely loyal.
Nazh is, presumably, well aware of Hoid. Have they met, and how does Nazh feel about him?
Nazh and Hoid have met. I suspect that Nazh is just fine with Hoid, though he wishes he would say things in a more direct way. Nazh doesn't care much for riddles or flowery language and wishes people would just get to the point.
What was the process that you went through for designing the various "solar" system charts from Arcanum Unbounded?
I loved making those star system charts for Arcanum. I found an old system chart that I thought looked really cool and combined it with the style of an old Arabic manuscript that caught my eye. I bought vellum, inked the start charts on there, and started painting them. It didn't turn out how I expected, so I scanned the inked lines, turned them into brushes in Illustrator, and created the charts again from there, painting them later in Photoshop and adding textures from the physical vellum projects I'd tried earlier.
Okay, that's just cool.
How accurate would they be in-world (they are obviously not to exact scale, but what about planetary colors and look)?
I would say that they're relatively accurate when it comes to the big stuff, but they are also done in a style that would suggest the people of the Cosmere still have a lot to learn about astronomy. Some planetary colors are right, some are just guessed at, so the simple answer to this question is: Your Mileage May Vary.
The specific instance I was thinking about was the depiction of the 10 Rosharan Gas Giants. Discarding the glyphs and the names, were the colors of those giants in the star chart a cultural projection, or does it have physical basis in how they appear in the Rosharan sky?
All these maps are products of the cultures and eras they came from. The mapmaker in this instance is probably using reference from all over the Cosmere, and the reference he used for this system came from Roshar itself. Since it's unlikely that the mapmaker has visited all the planets in all these systems, he has to rely on others for much of the information. I suspect he has the same questions you do about this particular map, though he rendered it based on the best information he could find. :)
Can we expect to see in world drawings or depictions of the various Parshendi forms at some point?
This is a great idea! I'll make a note of it. No plans currently, but now you never know!
Can you shed some light on how you went about designing Roshar's symbol?
We knew that we wanted the Double-eye to be part of the symbol. So it was a matter of finding the right shape for the eye. We went through dozens of ideas of how thick the lines could be, what parts to emphasize, etc. We also knew we wanted swords to be a part of it, so we tried several ways of incorporating those until we wound up with what we currently have. Someday, I'll share the different iterations we went through to land on the current symbol.
Although I know something similar has been asked before, but could you please share a fun tidbit about Nazh?
Okay, things we know about Nazh: Scottish-like accent, he likes fried Eggplants because they remind him of a similar vegetable from Threnody, he's grumpy, he looks like a young Peter Capaldi (in my opinion). I'm not sure what else I've said about him. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you that his home town will probably be called Cianalis, or some variation on that spelling.
We asked Brandon about gem cutting tech levels on Roshar.
He hedged some. But did let us know that while it was still labor intensive, it was not as bad as Renaissance Europe. That yes, they do have an edge. But would not state what the edge was. Even with us making jokes about Shard scalpels to make the cuts.
Writing my fight scenes, biggest challenges I have. One of the things I learned when I was a brand-new writer, approaching fight scenes, is that the fight scenes I loved in movies didn't translate well to fiction. I can sit and watch Jackie Chan punch and kick people for an hour and a half, and I'll just be happy. But if you tried to write that in the book, even done as dynamically as Jackie does it on the screen, it'll just get boring. "He kicked him. He punched him. He kicked him a different way. He punched him a different way." Just strict narratives of a fight are generally not very exciting, unless you make them very true-to-life and make them very short. You can certainly do just a straight fight narrative if it's a three-minute bout. But if you have somebody in battle, and it's going to stretch forty-five minutes or longer and you're gonna have this big, long, epic thing...
One of the things I learned very quickly is that the advantage we have as writers of fiction is we are inside the characters' heads. And that's an advantage that we have over film. So while they can make kicking and punching really interesting for a long time, we can focus the reader's attention by having the character have distinct goals they want to achieve, show their emotions, and show their reactions to what's happening around them. So, my biggest advice to you would be: look at your character. Decide on what you're character's goals are for this fight. Treat the fight like it's own sort of chapter, it's own sort of narrative, with beginning, middle, and end. With the character trying to achieve things, and either succeeding or failing. And trying to just filter it through their pain, their anguish, their confusion, or their excitement. Whatever their emotion is for that chapter. And keep your eyes on the character. Less on trying to have a spectacularly visual action scene, have a spectacularly emotional action scene.
